Improvement in carding-engines



UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

ROBERT PLEWS, OF S'MITHFIELD, RHODE ISLAND.

lMPROVEMENT IN CARDlNG-ENGINES.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 39,355, dated July 28, 1363.

To all whom. it may concern:

Be it known that I, ROBERT PLnws, of Smithfield, in the State of Rhode Island, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Machines for Oarding Fibrous Material; and I do hereby declare that the following specitication, taken in connection with the drawings, making a part of the same, is a full, clear, and exact description thereof.

Figure lis a side view. Fig. 2 is a side view with the frame D and side of the screen F removed. Fig. 3 is an end view.

The accompanying drawings, except in the particulars hereinafter mentioned, represent the carding-machine in universal use.

C is one of the feed-rollers, between which and its fellow, located just above it, but not shown in the drawings, the cotton or other brous material is presented to the machine. A is the cardingfcylinder, covered with cardclothing, and B the doffer-cylinder, to which the carded material is delivered.

D D is the frame of the machine in which, as shown in Fig. l, are suitable bearings for the several cylinders above named. The carding-cylinder A revolves from left to right in the direction of the arrow, and is driven by. a pulley in the ordinary way.

Fis the screen in common use, of the same curvature as the cylinder A, located just below it and extending from the feed rolls to the (iOffer-cylinder.

My improvement consists in the use of the adjustable blades G G, Fig. 2, which extend across the face of the cylinder A at the eX-. tremities of the screen F, and the office and ei'ect of which'are as follows Suppose the blades G G to be set to within onesixteenth of an inch of the card-clothing of the cylinder A, which can readily be done by means of the slotted arm E E, Fig. l, which control the blades and are keptin position by the set-screws a a. As the cylinder A rcvolves, a strong current of air will be thereby created, the tendency of which is at the feedroll end to separate from the cotton or other fibrous material the motes, seeds, and loose fibers which are 'contained in it. As the cyl inder in its revolution arrives at the point where its contents are discharged upon the dofferB,the residue of the short fibers and other refuse which do not pass off with the staple upon the doffer, and which in other machines accumulate in the teeth of the carding-cylinder until they are eftectually clogged, by the effect of the blast of air before mentioned, occasioned by the revolution of the cylinder and the diminished space between it and the blade G, are lifted out so far from the surface of the cylinder as to be cut off by the edge of the blade G, and discharged upon the floor or into a box fitted to receive them.

It is of the utmost importance in the manufacture of cotton, as well as other fibrous material, that the motes and short fibers should not pass into the carded product, as the effect will be felt throughout the manufacture in the tendency of the yarn to break at the places Where these imperfections in the material are found, and in carding-machines not operating upon my principle, as soonas the teeth of the carding cylinder become filled with this refuse a considerable portion must necessarily nd its way into the product. With my improvement this refuse, whichwould otherwise remain among the teeth of the cylinder until it becomes intermixed with the carding, is thrown off from the machine.

It is apparent that as the teeth of the cardclothing become worn from use the blades can be readjusted, so as to preserve the desired distance from the cylinder by the means already referred to.

Repeated practical tests of my invention in large manufacturing establishments have abundantly proved the superiority of this device over all others for accomplishing the removal of the loose fibers and refuse particles from the machine, and thereby preventing them from being worked into the cotton to its injury in all the .subsequent manufacturing operations.

While it is advisable to use both the cutting-blades shown, locating one on the feedroll side and the other upon the doifer side of the cylinder, it is obvious that the latter is the more important and etlicient one and that a greater advantage will result from the use of this one alone without the other.

I wish it, therefore, to be understood that my invention is not confined to the use of both the blades described, but that it will be employed if either is used.

l. am aware that a screen with sharp ends is described in the Letters Patent granted to Daniel S. Kimball, November 19,1861, but in this ease the screen is arranged concentrically with the main card-cylinder and the transverse blades composing the ends of the screen are not capable of being adjusted from time to time to the teeth ofthe cylinder. In my invention, on the contrary, the feature of the adjustability ot' the blades constitutes its value from the fact that unless the space between the ends oi the teeth and the edges of the blades is reduced to about the distance of one-sixteenth of anineh, orin other Words, unless the two are placed as near to each other as possible without interference, the great majority of the seeds, motes, and foreign particles mechanically held in the fibers of the cotton will not be Whipped ott by the edges of the blades.

My mode of adjustment possesses the peculiarity, first, of cont'orming'the edge or edges of the screen or blades to the main cylinder Without moving the screen or concave itself; secondly, the blade or blades may be set in a plane either concentric with, tangential to, or

even, so as to cut the main cylinder, leaving the concave in a concentric position only with regard to the main cylinder.

My invention is, therefore, not simply adjustment Without regard to beneficial eii'ect or purpose. It is an adjustment susceptible of several results, and that, too, Without moving the concave itself.

I claim- 1. The combination of a transverse adjustable blade, G, or a pair of adjustable blades, Gr G, with the cylinder of a machine for carding iibrous material, substantially as described, for the purposes specified.

2. Intercepting the current ot' air generated by the cylinder of a earding-machine when in operation by means of a transverse adjustable cutting-blade,G,or its equivalent, substantially as described, for the purposes specified.

, ROBERT PLEWS.

Witnesses BENJ. F. THURsToN, STEPHEN A. COOKE, Jr. 

